It's All About Parties? The Allocation and Selection of Committee Chairs in Belgium

In most parliaments committee chairs can shape the committee agenda and they play a key role in attempts of correcting ministerial drift (Fortunato et al 2017; Carroll and Cox 2012). Nevertheless, our understanding of the factors that shape the distribution of chair positions between parties and the selection of individual legislators to serve in this office is still very limited. Thus, studies of committee chair selection outside the US Congress remain rare, even if somewhat more attention has been devoted to the topic recently (Santos and Reno 2004; Chiru and Gherghina 2017; Fernandes et al 2018). Similarly, research on the allocation of committee chairs between parties is also largely absent, with the few existing studies advancing two different explanations: a strategic use for shadowing purposes (Carroll and Cox, 2012; Clark and Jurgelevičiūtė 2008) or a compensation mechanism for coalition parties receiving fewer ministerial portfolios (Pukelis 2016). The paper draws on an original dataset to investigate the two interrelated topics. First, we will analyze the extent to which chair allocation is used in Belgium by coalition parties to keep tabs on ministers of their cabinet partners or for other patronage-related goals. Second, we will test which of three main theories of legislative organization (i.e. informational, partisan or distributive rationales) explains best the selection of individual MPs as committee chairs in the past two decades. References Carroll, R., & Cox, G. W. (2012). Shadowing ministers: Monitoring partners in coalition governments. Comparative Political Studies, 45(2), 220-236. Chiru, M., & Gherghina, S. (2017). Committee chair selection under high informational and organizational constraints. Party Politics, DOI: 1354068817741765. Clark, T. D., & Jurgelevičiūtė, D. (2008). ‘“Keeping Tabs” on Coalition Partners’: a Theoretically Salient Case Study of Lithuanian Coalitional Governments. Europe-Asia Studies, 60(4), 631-642. Fernandes, J. M., Riera, P., & Cantú, F. (2018). The Politics of Committee Chairs Assignment in Ireland and Spain. Parliamentary Affairs. DOI: 10.1093/pa/gsy009 Fortunato, D., Martin, L. W., & Vanberg, G. (2017). Committee Chairs and Legislative Review in Parliamentary Democracies. British Journal of Political Science, 1-13. Pukelis, L. (2016). The role of parliamentary committee chairs in coalition governments: office and policy theses reconsidered. East European Politics, 32(2), 215-235.